Catalogue of pictures and other objects of art, selected from the collections of Mr. Robert Holford [1808-1892] mainly from Westonbirt in Gloucestershire

Burlington Fine Arts Club

Catalogue of pictures and
other abjects of art selected
from the collections of
Mr. Robert Holford

N

5247

H72B87

1921

c.l

ROBARTS

With Sir George Holford's Compliments

Biirlinston Fine Arts Club

CATALOGUE OF PICTURES

AND OTHER OBJECTS OF ART

SELECTED FROM THE COLLECTIONS OF

MR. ROBERT HOLFORD

[1808-1892]

MAINLY FROM WESTONBIRT IN GLOUCESTERSHIRE

LONDON

PRIVATELY PRINTED FOR THE BURLINGTON FINE ARTS CLUB
WINTER EXHIBITION 1921-1922

•Jx.

With Sir George Holford's Compliments

Burlington Fine Arts Club

CATALOGUE OF PICTURES

AND OTHER OBJECTS OF ART

SELECTED FROM THE COLLECTIONS OF

MR ROBERT HOLFORD

[1808-1892]

MAINLY FROM WESTONBIRT IN GLOUCESTERSHIRE

LONDON

PRIVATELY PRINTED FOR THE BURLINGTON FINE ARTS CLUB
WINTER EXHIBITION 1921-1922

PRINTED IN ENGLAND

AT THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

BY FREDERICK HALL

COMMITTEE FOR THIS EXHIBITION

THE LORD CARMICHAEL, G.C.S.I., G.C.M.G.,
K.C.M.G., Chairman

ROBERT H. BENSON, ESQ.
DR. TANCRED BORENIUS

THE EARL OF CRAWFORD AND BALCARRES, K.T., P.O.
CAMPBELL DODGSON, ESQ., C.B.E.

HENRY HARRIS, ESQ.

THE EARL OF ILCHESTER

SIR ROBERT C. WITT, C.B.E.

PREFACE

[HE Exhibition that fills the Gallery for this Winter, 1921-2,
consists of pictures, drawings, maiolica, painted MSS., early
printed books with woodcuts and copper engravings, porce-
lain, ar moires a deux corps, cassoni and objets de veriu,
lent by the courtesy of Lt.-Col. Sir George Holford. They
are chosen out of the collections of his father, Mr. Holford,
an original member of the Burlington Club, which, in the words of its first
provisional title in 1856, was 'a collector's club'.

The original members included inheritors of treasures at Hamilton Palace,
Bowood, Deepdene, Panshanger and other houses full of splendid English
portraits hanging harmoniously with heirlooms from great collectors in the
seventeenth century, when it was part of a liberal education to set forth from
England on the grand tour and return with spoil from Italy and France.
Others, again, gifted with equally fine taste, such as Sir Robert Peel, the
English Rothschilds, Mr. Thomas Baring, Mr. Gambier Parry, Mr. Ruskin
and Mr. Holford, were forming collections for themselves, taking advantage
of the opportunities afforded during the first half of the nineteenth century by
the Napoleonic Wars and the Revolutionary vicissitudes of 1848. All agreed
in wanting a common meeting-place to compare their treasures.

This difficulty was solved by the formation of the Club. Permission was
obtained, through Sir Henry Cole, then Secretary of the Science and Art
Department, from Lord Granville, Lord President of the Council, with the
approval of Mr. Gladstone, for evening receptions at Marlborough House
where the Science and Art Department was domiciled from 1852 to 1857.

The meeting which formally defined the objects of the Club was summoned
by circular of the Hon. Sec. and ' Organizer ', Mr. Robinson, subsequently
Sir Charles Robinson, and was held on the i8th February, 1857, at the Studio

Preface

of the Baron Marochetti, 34 Onslow Square, with the Marchese d'Azeglio,
Sardinian Minister, in the Chair. The purpose was ' to hold receptions, or
"conversazioni", from November to July, at which objects of art and virtu
will be collected and exhibited.'

Ladies were eligible to attend the receptions without payment of the
annual subscription and with the privilege of introducing a visitor. The lady
members were :

Miss Burdett Coutts

Miss Susan Durant

Mrs. Ford

The Countess Dowager of Lich field

Lady Molesworth
Mrs. Palliser
The Lady Rolle
The Hon. Mrs. Villiers

From the beginning, as now, professional dealers were not eligible for election.
By degrees the Club came to include connoisseurs, artists and critics who
were more or less collectors, as may be seen from the following list comprising
140 names of those who contributed to its early success. The 97 original
members are marked ' OM '.

OM The Marquess of Abercorn, K.G.,

P.C.

OM Samuel Addington, Esq.
OM William Angerstein, Esq.
OM The . Hon. William Ashley.

Member of Committee
S. A. R. le Due d'Aumale
OM The Marchese d'Azeglio, Sardi-
nian Minister. Member of
Committee

H. Nugent Bankes Esq.
Thomas Baring, Esq., M.P.
OM Alexander Barker, Esq.
OM C. Villiers Bayly, Esq.

Wentworth B. Beaumont, Esq.,

M.P.
George Cavendish Bentinck, Esq.,

M.P.

A. J. Beresford-Hope, Esq., M.P.
OM The Rev. Thomas Berney

H. G. Bohn, Esq.

H. B. Brabazon, Esq.
OM The Marquess of Breadalbane
OM The Rev. W. Davenport Bromley
OM The Lord Broughton

Charles Butler, Esq.
OM The Earl Cadogan
OM Sir Archibald Campbell, Bt., M.P.
OM Sir Hugh Hume Campbell, Bt.
OM W. H. Carpenter, Esq.
OM The Viscount Chelsea

Edward Cheney, Esq.
OM Henry Cole, Esq. Member of

Committee

OM William Coningham, Esq.
OM The Hon. William Cowper, M.P.

G. Wodehouse Currie, Esq.
OM The Hon. Robert Curzon

G. W. Dasent, Esq.

The Lord Delamere

Preface

OM The Lord De L'Isle

Sir William Drake
OM The Lord Dufferin
OM Sir Charles Eastlake, P.R.A.

The Earl of Effingham
OM Sir Henry Ellis

The Viscount Falmouth
OM Richard Fisher, Esq. Hon.

Treasurer

OM Richard Ford, Esq.
OM C. Drury E. Fortnum, Esq.
OM Andrew Fountaine, Esq.
OM A. Wollaston Franks, Esq.

The Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone
OM The Earl Granville, K.G., P.C.

F. Seymour Haden, Esq.

Dr. Edward Hamilton
OM The Duke of Hamilton
OM The Lord Hatherton
OM John Henderson, Esq.
OM M. J. Higgins, Esq.
OM Sir John Hippisley, Bt.
OM The Baron Hochschild, Swedish

Minister

OM R. S. Holford, Esq., M.P.
OM E. Holmes, Esq.
OM Henry T. Hope, Esq.

Louis Huth, Esq.
OM M. J. Johnson, Esq.

The Earl of Lanesborough
OM The Marquess of Lansdowne,

K.G.
OM A. H. Layard, Esq., M.P.

Sir George Phillip Lee
OM Sir John G.Shaw Lefevre, K.C.B.

The Lord Henry Lennox, M.P.
OM Frederick Locker, Esq. Member
of Committee

The Marquess of Londonderry

OM Thomas Longman, Esq.

OM Norman H. Macdonald, Esq.

OM Hollingworth Magniac, Esq.

John Malcolm, Esq., of Poltalloch
OM Dudley Coutts Marjoribanks, Esq.,

M.P.

OM Sir John Marjoribanks, Bt.
OM The Baron Marochetti. Member

of Committee
OM W. Maskell, Esq.
OM R. Monckton Milnes, Esq., M.P.
OM George J. Morant, Esq.
OM C. Octavius S. Morgan, Esq.,

M.P.

OM H. A. J. Munro, Esq., of Novar
Sir Roderick Murchison, Bt,

K.C.B.

OM H. Gueneau de Mussy, Esq.
OM Robert Napier, Esq.
OM G. S. Nicholson, Esq.
OM The Lord Overstone. Member

of Committee

OM The Rev. George T. Palmer
OM A. Panizzi, Esq.

T. Gambier Parry, Esq.

The Rt. Hon. Sir Robert Peel,

Bt., M.P.

OM The Count Carlo Pepoli
OM The Comte de Persigny, French

Ambassador

OM Sir Charles R. Price, Bt.
OM Lake Price, Esq.

Sir John Ramsden, Bt., M.P.
OM Richard Redgrave, Esq., R.A.
OM Samuel Redgrave, Esq.
OM J. C. Robinson, Esq. Hon.

Secretary

D. G. Rossetti, Esq.
W. M. Rossetti, Esq.

8

Preface

OM Sir Anthony de Rothschild

The Baron Ferdinand de

Rothschild

OM The Baron Lionel de Rothschild
OM The Baron Meyer de Rothschild
OM John Ruskin, Esq.

George Salting, Esq.

The Lord Saltoun

George Scharf, Esq.
OM Sir Francis Scott, Bt.
OM Sir Sibbald D. Scott, Bt.
OM Henry Danby Seymour, Esq.,
M.P. Member of Committee
OM Alfred Seymour, Esq.
OM Felix Slade, Esq.
OM William Smith, Esq.
OM Ralph Sneyd, Esq.
OM The Rev. Walter Sneyd
OM H. Scudamore Stanhope, Esq.

Colonel Sir Anthony Sterling,

K.C.B.
OM Wm. Stirling, Esq., M.P.

The Viscount Strangford

OM James R. Swinton, Esq.

Christopher Sykes, Esq., M.P.
OM The Lord de Tabley
OM The Lord Talbot de Malahide

John Edward Taylor, Esq.
OM The Rev. Montague Taylor

The Lord Edward Thynne
OM George Tomline, Esq., M.P.
OM Travers Twiss, Esq.
OM M. Uzielli, Esq.

Henry Vaughan, Esq.
OM The Lord Ward

The Earl of Warwick
OM The Rev. H. Wellesley, D.D.
OM William Wells, Esq.
OM Algernon West, Esq.
OM M. Van der Weyer, Belgian
Minister

J. A. McNeill Whistler, Esq.
OM James Wilson, Esq., M.P.
OM The Rt. Hon. James Stuart

Wortley, M.P.
OM M. Digby Wyatt, Esq.

Among connoisseurs and critics there occur the names of John Ruskin and
W. M. Rossetti, and among artists those of F. Seymour Haden, H. B. Brabazon,
D. G. Rossetti, and James McNeill Whistler. Though eminently good company
in his way, and to those who played up to him, Whistler did not prove to be a
clubable man in Dr. Johnson's sense. At any rate his presence under the same
roof as his brother-in-law Seymour Haden did not make for harmony. Seymour
Haden complained to the Committee that Whistler 'had assaulted him in a
tavern in Paris ', and, after some correspondence and discussion at a special
general meeting in December 1867, Whistler's membership was terminated by
eighteen votes against eight. W. M. Rossetti thereupon resigned, and his resig-
nation was followed shortly afterwards by that of his brother Dante Gabriel.

The receptions at Marlborough House were followed by others at South
Kensington when the Museum removed thither. They were also held in the
private houses of various members, and the Due d'Aumale, the Marchese
d'Azeglio, Mr. Thomas Baring, Mr. Beresford Hope, Mr. Wentworth Beau-
mont (subsequently Lord Allendale), Mr. Gladstone, Mr. John Henderson,

Preface 9

Mr. Holford, Mr. Louis Huth, Mr. John Malcolm, Mr. Dudley Marjoribanks
(Lord Tweedmouth), Baron Marochetti, Mr. Charles Mills (Lord Hillingdon),
Lord Overstone, Baron Lionel de Rothschild, and many others are recorded
as having ' received the Society ' — some of them year after year. The object
was defined to be ' to facilitate intercourse between men of Art predilections,
and especially those who are collectors, with a view of giving them convenient
opportunities of comparing their acquisitions, and of criticizing, and obtaining
information in connexion with Art subjects '.

It was a time when club houses, now so numerous, were few, and there
was none specially dedicated to Art and Collectors. The South Kensington
Museum was then only in the early years of its existence, and the collections
at the British Museum were far less extensive than at present. With the
exception of the gatherings occasionally held at the rooms of the Society of
Antiquaries, the club gave at that time to those interested in the Fine Arts
almost the only opportunities of comparing masterpieces, discussing attributions,
and uncovering the wiles of restorers and fakers.

In this manner members became familiar with countless works belonging
to the Due d'Aumale, now the heritage of the French Nation at Chantilly ;
with the splendid drawings by Old Masters of Mr. Malcolm of Poltalloch, now
in the British Museum, but then well shown in the old square brick-built
house at the corner of Great Stanhope Street and Park Lane, since pulled
down; Mr. Beresford Hope's jewels; Mr. Mills's French Furniture and English
Portraits ; Lord Overstone's seventeenth-century Dutch Masterpieces, auto-
graphs, and Famille Rose ' Garnitures de Cheminee ', unique in size, decoration,
and colour ; with the Reynoldses, Lawrences, and Dutch Pictures of Mr.
Thomas Baring ; with Baron Lionel, Baron Ferdinand, Baron Meyer, and Sir
Anthony de Rothschild's mediaeval goldsmiths' and silversmiths' work, Renais-
sance jewels, bronzes, and enamels, to name a few only of the objects to which
that family has applied its genius for collecting. In this manner the old
members of the club sought to put in practice the motto of Grolier, ' Sibi et
amicis', and to justify their own — ' ^iXoKaXovfifv avtv /xaAa/a'ay'.

The old Minute Books contain records of these gatherings. Typical
among them was that of the 2gth June, 1865, when 'the concluding conversazione
of the season was held at the residence of R. S. Holford, Esq., M.P.' The
specialities for illustration were : Ancient Venetian, Bohemian, Dutch, and other
glasswares. (2) Bookbinding and works in Stamped Leather. (3) Maiolica
wares in general. (4) Gold and Silversmiths' work. (5) Faience of Henry II.

B

lo Preface

Nineteen members contributed specimens. They met in the congenial
milieu of their host's collections of pictures of all schools, MSS. from the
ninth to the sixteenth centuries, Rembrandt Etchings and Drawings by Old
Masters, Early Printed Books, Block Books, and Early Illustrated Books with
Engravings on Wood and on Copper, &c., all finding their appropriate setting
in the ordered spaces of Dorchester House — itself a work of Art.

Mr. Holford's influence and example were great with his contemporaries
as well as with the younger generation. Therefore a few words about him
and his achievement may not be out of place.

He was endowed with a sense of proportion that developed into la vue
juste. His enthusiasm was under control, his choice was deliberate, and his
range catholic. In painting he sought examples of the maturity of every
school, preferring, at least for the atmosphere of a classical palazzo, the fullness
of the summer of Art to its colder springtime. But for an English country
house he felt the fascination of youth and its effort to break the fetters of
tradition, delve into Nature, and reach freedom of self-expression ; as is
evidenced by several primitives and Pre-Raphaelites from Westonbirt in this
exhibition as well as by his painted books and the miniature altarpiece of
Pesellino recently exhibited here. While he avoided 'prentice work, he admitted
the Eclectics for their good drawing and painting. But he had no sympathy
with the cult of the crude, or the decadent, and was not one to be satisfied with
the maxim -rrXiov rjfttffv Trai'Tor. Living before the controversy of ' Art for Art's
Sake', he rejected Nieuwenhuys's famous Titian, ' Tarquin and Lucrece',
but only because he had no studio in which an artist might hang a picture
whose subject is ' The expense of spirit in a waste of shame '.* Above
all he demanded beauty of composition, line, and colour, and demanded also a
noble subject along with the life-giving touch of a Master. While he was strong
on first principles as accepted in his day, his mind was open. His relations with
artists show that he was accessible to the aspirations of experiment as well as
to the lessons of history. Legally-minded himself — three of his forefathers

* SONNET No. CXXIX. — Credo che fin hora la Mta vostra halbia riceuuta la pitiura di Lucrezia
Romano, violata da Tarquino. (Commencement of Titian's letter of i Aug. 1571, at the age of 94 to
Philip II.) What the Catholic King did with the Lucrezia is uncertain. She passed out of sight and
out of mind for 70 years until the Earl of Arundel presented her, or her counterfeit, to Charles I. At
the sale by Cromwell's orders of the Whitehall Collection Jabach bought the picture and sold it to
Louis XIV, out of whose gallery it passed into the hands of a series of collectors, Mr. Bates,
Mr. Conyngham, the Marquis of Hertford, and Lord Northwick. Nieuwenhuys bought and sold it
twice. Crowe and Cavalcaselle knew the picture well and the ravages of time and the restorer that
mar it ; the ' Northwick Lucrezia ' commends itself (they say) neither in form nor in treatment to
modern taste, but one still sees that it is a work of Titian's advanced age. Its last appearance was
at Christie's in 1911 at the Charles Butler sale where it fetched £2,730. Dimensions, 74x56-^ in.

Preface 1 1

were Masters in Chancery — he respected the lawless fancy of an artist and a
man's right to express his mood and his meaning in the material of his choice.

Tell me where is Fancy bred,
Or in the heart, or in the head?
How begot, how nourished?

He belonged to the race of Bacon and Blackstone and contributed in his own
sphere towards elucidating the distinction between good and bad, as the laws of
right and wrong in the fine arts broaden down from precedent to precedent in an
ever- widening field. In short, his mind worked inductivelyas well as deductively,
and it was the combination of heart and head in pursuit of beauty and truth
that accounts for his influence and entitles him to this memorial. Masterpieces
of many schools hang in harmony together in his two houses. In Rembrandt,
Titian, Velazquez, Rubens, Van Dyck, Gaudenzio, Lotto, and others (not to
mention landscape painters) he found side by side the highest and the homeliest
types of humanity. He felt that while there is no higher flight of imagination
than theirs, there is also no greater realism. And yet there is no discord.

He was born in 1808, and was a great builder as well as a great collector.
Early in life he conceived the desire of erecting a house in London that would
be very different from the prevailing architecture and taste of the Victorian
Era. At length the opportunity occurred to purchase from the Ecclesiastical
Commissioners the site of old Dorchester House with its hundred yards of
frontage to Park Lane between South Street and Deanery Street. Of all the
Arts, architecture came first with him, combined with worthy surroundings ;
other arts and crafts were subsidiary, and contributed, in appropriate setting,
to the adornment and perfection of an interior as a whole. He would even
reject a fine picture if it did not exactly suit the place he could give it, and
thus the Francia altarpiece with its lunette now hangs in the National Gallery
instead of at the end of the ball-room at Dorchester House. Still, pending
the elaboration of plans by his architect, Vulliamy, to embody his idea of an
Italian palazzo, he collected in anticipation, and stored numerous smaller
pictures and objects in a house in Russell Square acquired for the purpose.

When once his conception had been made visible in drawings, measured in
quantities, and translated into heavy weight, foundations began to arise to his
bidding, and the actual construction occupied three years, 1853-6.

He was also a Maecenas in the Roman sense to Alfred Stevens amongst
others — sculptor, painter and artist in every material that he touched. The
decoration of the dining-room at Dorchester House was left wholly to Stevens
and was incomplete at his death. But his genius lives in the well-known

12 Preface

marble fireplace with its two supporting figures, also in wood carvings, and in
designs for the painted cove and ceiling in three compartments. No other artist
has been allowed, or has sought, to lay hands on Stevens's work to finish it.

Dorchester House was hardly completed and filled with the results of
some twenty years of collecting, when Mr. Holford began plans with Vulliamy
for pulling down and rebuilding Westonbirt in Gloucestershire. The present
house is the third upon that site. Two small engravings of the earlier gabled
manor-houses are exhibited in the Club drawing-room along with a photo-
graph of the last one. It stands on a plateau of the Cotswolds, six miles
from Badminton and four from the escarpment which bounds the left bank of
the Severn, and whence valley after valley breaks down to the river. The
garden slopes from the south front to a watercourse down which some of the
upper springs of the Avon run, visible in flood time, but just underground for
the rest of the year. The surroundings afforded the builder scope for the
landscape gardening and arboriculture to which he was passionately devoted in
later life, and with which he enhanced the dignity of the house.

Its style is that of James I, and marks the period, as at Hardwick, Castle
Ashby, Longleat, and Wollaton, when low rooms, and small, such as prevailed
in Tudor Houses, had given place to large and lofty proportions ; and
perpendicular lines with aspiring gables and chimneys were yielding to the
dominant horizontal lines of Classic Architecture and Wren. Mr. Holford
used to say that Wollaton was most in his mind in the building of Westonbirt.

The exterior was completed about 1870; but much remained to do after
his death in 1892, including the decoration of the three principal rooms and
the disposition of the pictures and other objects which he had destined
for Westonbirt. Not until the summer of 1921 was this accomplished
by his son, and sundry maiolica, armoires, and cassoni, besides pictures and
drawings that had been lost sight of, were brought to light again. Many are
unknown even to visitors and friends. Yet others have left their home only
on rare occasions when, for instance, this Club held special exhibitions of
Ferrarese, Milanese, Umbrian, Venetian and Florentine art, and drew, never
in vain, on the generosity of Sir George ; or an appeal came from Amsterdam
or Paris, or from the Royal Academy, for a loan of the Rembrandts.

The Committee felt it a happy occasion, and a tribute due to a great
collector, to revive the old custom when one member ' received the Society ' as
host, so to speak, although perforce in the Club Gallery to-day instead of in his
own house.

CATALOGUE

PICTURES

1. ST. GEORGE. Painter unknown, c. 1500.

The youthful Saint stands bareheaded in armour, erect, pallid, and
cold as if carven in stone. He shows no trace of fight, nor joy in victory.
The dragon is compounded in the likeness of a bear with a tail of
a serpent, paralysed and dying of a wound that has severed the spine
across the shoulder-blades, but which the Saint's spear is not broad
enough, nor weighty enough, to inflict. His red shoes with extravagant
points are similar to those in the picture of Richard II in Westminster
Abbey, and as depicted in the MS. Epistle to Richard II at the British
Museum, Royal MS. 20 B. vi, fol. 2.

Its authorship has been the subject of many guesses, e.g. Spanish
or Hispano-Flemish, or some unknown Englishman. But it is pro-
bably South-German, i.e. of the Suabian School, whose head was
Zeitblom of Ulm. The painter doubtless saw his subject as a statue ;
and found his imagination fettered by tradition and the less tractable
material of the sister art. St. George's crimson cloak, red shoes, and the
red cross on shield and pennon add a touch of warmth and life.
Panel, 3o| x 1 5^ in.

2. CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN. Florentine, c. 1440-1450.

Probably a leaf from a splendid book. Painted on gold ground,
some of which in the left-hand top corner is exfoliating. Similar
leaves are exhibited in the books at San Marco, the work of miniaturists
under their master Fra Angelico. But here there is more variety and
movement in the figures, and the portraiture is more realistic ; where-
fore Sir Claude Phillips connects this miniature with a ' Virgin and
Child with angels beneath a floral canopy ' in the collection of
Sir Herbert Cook, which he holds to be a work of the earliest time
of Benozzo Gozzoli (1420-1497).
Vellum, 14! x 12^ in.

14 Pictures

3. NATIVITY. Florentine, c. 1470-1490.

The ruined roofless stable is lit from two different quarters. The
level rays of sunrise tinge the top of the stable wall with a rosy flush ;
while a milder light from the star that ' came and stood over where the
young Child was ', penetrates the interior and makes luminous the blue
shadows in the small nude body, touching its rondeurs with warm
colour, as He lies on his back with arms outstretched towards His
Mother. The same light warms the hands and rippling hair of Mary
Virgin, kneeling and giving thanks, likewise the hands of Joseph, who
is seated on a saddle and lifts a protecting arm. The figures, just
under life-size, show character and originality ; they belong to the
period between the death of Filippo Lippi, 1469, and the advent of
Botticelli and Filippino. The yellow and rose of Joseph's cloak and
habit form an irregular mass of colour, and recall Ghirlandajo (in the
' Visitation ' of the Louvre) or Bartolommeo di Giovanni — ' Alunno di
Domenico'. Also maybe noted the naturalism of two shepherds in
the background, one raising himself to gaze at the Star in the East,
and the other seated, incurious ; while the joyous procession of the
Kings, preceded by a Landsknecht in harlequin dress and followed by a
gay company in variegated costume on horseback with a clown, or fool,
towards the rear, presses across a bridge to reach the journey's end. In
type, demeanour, and costume the figures hail from the north, and the
sloping roofs, with a fagade in steps, of the village they are passing
belong to high valleys in the Alps ; and this suggests that the artist
may even have been born north of Turin, and have seen the ' Tedeschi '
crossing the passes, but subsequently became domiciled in Florence,
and artistically a Tuscan.

Panel, 48 x 52 in.

4. PORTRAIT OF A MAN. Petrus Cristus (1440-1470).

Life-size bust and shoulders, in black fez cap against a dark grey
background, about thirty years of age, clean shaven, his white collar just
seen above a crimson doublet edged with fur. The attribution is due to
Sir C. Holmes. Dying as Petrus Cristus did about 1473, he forms a
link between Jan van Eyck (d. 1441) and Hans Memling (d. 1491), and
may, as Mr. Roger Fry suggests, have influenced Antonello (1430-1479).
Panel, i8|x 13^ in.

Pictures 15

5. PI ETA. Possibly an early Perugino, £.1475.

The nude figure of Christ stands out between the purple in which
His Mother is draped and the crimson cloak of St. John ; while Mary
Magdalen stands detached on the left and helpless, and the two other
Maries with beautiful veiled heads look over St. John's shoulders.
Traces of the self-conscious sentiment of Perugino are visible in the
red eyelids, the poses and expressive fingers of all except the Virgin
Mother and her Son ; but the sentiment is not overcharged. The
Mother's grief has spent itself and her face is classic, bound with white
linen round the forehead and under the chin, like a nun. The Umbrian
sweetness, and the verditer showing through the flesh-tones, are common
to Pinturicchio and others of the Perugian school.
Panel, ii£x i6| in.

6. PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN. Bartolommeo Veneto.

Life-size, half-length figure before a vermilion curtain looped up so
as to show blue sky above. He wears an enamelled jewel of a winged
bull in a black triangular hat, and a black cloak with fur collar. The
edge of his doublet crosses diagonally the horizontal line of his jerkin
underneath — a characteristic of the master's execution. Inscribed on
a cartellino — 1520. From the Casa del Mayno, Milan.
Panel, 26f x 20 in.

7. PORTRAIT OF A LITTLE GIRL OF THREE OR FOUR.

Seventeenth Century. Painter unknown.

Full length, standing facing in lace dress to her feet, with crimson
bows and embroidery, coral necklet, and jewel on her breast. Some-
body has attracted her attention, and a goldfinch held on a red cord
flutters away out of hand. ' She hath it in her heart to give it thee.'
Will she make the advance ? Forse che sl,forse che no.

By some artist unidentified, probably Italian by birth, but much
travelled, and steeped in the work of Hispano-Flemish Masters. Such
was Sofonisba Anguisciola, who died in 1623 at the age of 96.
Canvas, 28|x 19! in.

8. PORTRAIT OF A MAN. Painter unknoivn, c. 1520.

Aged about 30, face clean shaven, steady eyes, full of vitality and
character, humorous and delicately modelled features ; the half smile

1 6 Pictures

that flits over his countenance and the shut mouth denote one who will
read you sooner than be read. The painter comes out of the school
of Jan Joesten van Calcar (who died about 1519).
Panel, 17 x 16 in.

g. PORTRAIT OF A BOY. Giovanni Bellini, c. 1490-1505.

About 1 2 years of age with light brown hair, thick and curly ; a
touch of melancholy in the turn of the head, grave eyes, and full
pleading lips. Whether the execution is entirely by the hand of
Giambellino has been doubted.

A cartellino which may once have borne a name is upon the
marble parapet, and on either side, in Roman capitals, ' OPVS BELLINI
IOANNIS VENETI ', the second L longer than the first ; below are the
words ' NON ALITER ' (in capitals twice as large) by a later hand.
Panel, 15x9 in.

10. LANDSCAPE. Domenichino.

A river flowing clear, deep, and slow between high banks ; a con-
ventional castello and trees on the further bank and two naturalistic
willows in the foreground to left. A baptism by St. John the Baptist
of a couple is taking place on the shingle by the stream, while a man
in the foreground, who presumably has just gone through the ceremony,
is pulling on his stockings. Other small figures include a woman with
her child, pointing to draw the attention of two men. In the history
of landscape, Domenichino, 1581-1641, precedes Claude, 1600-1682,
Caspar Poussin, 1613-1675, and Salvator Rosa, 1615-1673.
On copper, lof x 15! in.

11. PORTRAIT OF A LORD DE LA WARR.

A follower of Holbein, c. 1555.

Age about 21, full face, figure to below the knees, standing
astraddle, like bluff King Hal, with good humour in his unflinching
gaze. Bon camarade to his friends, he touches the hilt of his sword, game
to ruffle and fight for pride of blood, not without insolence if the occasion
serves. He wears a double chain round his neck, slashed black surcoat
over red jerkin, black cape edged with gold, embroidered collar and
cuffs. Complexion blonde, moustache shaved, the down of a fair beard

Pictures 17

just sprouting, the minute rendering of which and certain hatchings in
the flesh-tones may serve to identify other work of the artist, who is
probably Gwillim Stretes, Painter to Edward VI in 1551. The portrait
of the Earl of Surrey at Hampton Court is by the same hand.

Acquired as ' portrait of Lord De La Warr ', and in fact the arms on
his ring, charged with a shield bearing arg., a fess wavy sa., belong to
the West family, and may be those of Sir Thomas West, K.G., Qth
Baron De La Warr ; or those of his half-brother Sir George West, or
else of Sir George's son Sir William, knighted in 1568 and summoned
to Parliament as Baron De La Warr in 1572.

12. PORTRAIT OF A GIRL. Florentine, c. 1450.

Under life-size in profile to left. Her golden hair is drawn back
from the forehead according to the custom of the time, plaited, bound
with a narrow ribbon of the same colour, supported in an embroidered
net of seed pearls, and fastened with a jewel at the top of the head.

It may be compared with the profile portrait of a lady by Domenico
Veneziano at Berlin, or more closely to the profile ascribed to Alessio
Baldovinetti in the National Gallery, where the hair is treated in the
same way and topped by a jewel. Until recently the background was
covered with black paint, the removal of which disclosed that, where
the damage of time has spared it, the original was dark slate colour.

In the Reports of Berlin Museums Feb.-March 1920 it is suggested
that the picture may be Elisabetta di Montefeltro, wife of Roberto
Malatesta, and Umbro-Florentine, descending from Piero della Fran-
cesca, rather than pure Florentine.

Panel, 15! x io£ in., exclusive of gilt-moulding to the panel.

13. THE MUSE OF PAINTING. Venetian, c. 1560.

Small female figure standing in a niche between two caryatides,
richly dressed in the Venetian style. She holds her palette in her left
hand, together with a panel resting against her hip, and two brushes
in her right hand. The welcome of her outspread arms, the poise of
her head, the dark observant eyes beneath her fair hair, the curtsey
of the figure towards her unseen company and, above all, her type are
inspired by Paul Veronese. Probably painted for a piece of furniture.
Panel, iS^x 16 in.

1 8 Pictures

14. HOLY FAMILY. Joos van der Beke, or Van Cleef, 1520-1567.

The execution is highly finished with minute accessories. Joseph
wears a straw hat, as often occurs with this master.
Acquired as ' Van Eyck '. Panel, 28| x 21 in.

15. ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. Painter unknown, c. 1480-1490.

Life-size, half-length of the Saint, arrested for a moment in the act
of writing with a reed pen in a small 410 note-book with scarlet binding.
The left hand is significant and sustains the book, while thumb and
forefinger hold the inkpot and the second finger marks the open page.
The white inside his black hood marks the identity of the Saint.
The vivacity of the hazel eyes, the determination of the mouth, the
frown of the knit brows, the strength and expressiveness of the hands
are characteristic of the painter, while the drawing and modelling denote
a great artist, as in the Church of the Ognissanti you may feel the
power of Botticelli's St. Augustine (1444-1510) facing Ghirlandajo's
St. Jerome (1449-1494). Whoever the painter was, he was a delineator
of the inward and spiritual, as well as of the outward and visible man.

The authorship of this portrait has aroused much discussion. Gifted
and trained critics differ even as to the school to which it belongs.
Thus Sir C. Phillips, after an eloquent appreciation of ' the swift flame
of thought that commands and moves the strong yet sensitive hands ',
and its ' absolute momentariness, rare in the late Quattrocento ', says it
would hardly be over-bold to attribute it to the head of the Ferrarese
School — Cosimo Tura himself. Sir Herbert Cook also believes it to be
Ferrarese, viz. by Baldassare D'Este. Others hold it to be North
Italian and suggest Montagna, or Gentile Bellini, this last attribution
being due to Mr. Roger Fry. Gentile Bellini (he says) is the only one
of the Venetians who, ' abandoning the descriptive style which was
indigenous to his native Venice, arrived at the austerity and structural
logic of the Florentines '. And he aptly refers to the newly uncovered
signature of Andrea del Castagno on certain frescoes in San Zaccaria.
Lastly, there is the claim of the Florentine School and especially of
Botticelli who naturally absorbed and developed the genius for por-
traiture of Castagno. His St. Augustine (above mentioned) also holds
an inkpot, with a reed pen, in his expressive, twisted, fingers ; and the
requisite force of character and supreme portraiture are plain to see in
the Sistine Chapel, and indeed throughout Botticelli's work.
Coarse linen laid upon wood. i8|x 14 in.

Picttires 19

16. PORTRAIT OF A MAN.

Giovanni de Bust (Cariani), 1485/90-1547.

Half-length, life-size, portrait of a big, fair man and strong, with blonde
complexion, beard and moustache, blue eyes, rather small in the relation
to the broad face and heavy jaw ; enveloped in an ample black cloak
with deep fur collar, and wearing a soft black cap falling down over the
farther ear. The fair North Italian type is not unusual with the master
from Bergamo among the foot-hills of the Alps.

Acquired in Milan as by Titian from the family of del Mayno.
Canvas, 29! x 30 in.

17. CEPHALUS AND PROCRIS. Venetian, 1550-1560.

A Venetian poesia, or painted poem. Procris lies dying of a wound
in the breast from the never-erring spear which lies beside her — the
fatal gift of Artemis. A Cretan hound, the other gift of the goddess,
sits at attention at her feet, and Cephalus bends over to take her in his
arms. His crimson and white tunic, her brilliant blue dress and the
orange drapery on which she lies form a contrast of warm colour against
the cooler blues and greens of water, sky, and woodland. In the middle
distance a shepherd lifts his arms, helpless to arrest the tragedy.

Another such poesia is in the Wantage collection, on canvas, 14 x 34
in.; 'The babe Jupiter and the Melian nymphs', by Tintoretto. The
subject of the dying lady does not lend itself for a Tintoretto to
depict the movement of one who vera incessu patuit dea. In spite of
resemblances, this painted poem descends not from Tintoretto but from
Paolo Veronese.

Panel, 1 5 x 3 1 \ in. Oval in oblong, the spandrils at each end being
filled up to simulate a Sansovino frame in grisaille.

18. PORTRAIT OF A LADY. Justus Sustermans, 1597-1681.

This portrait was long held, owing to the pose, costume, treatment
of the hands and beauty of the sitter, to be by Van Dyck and of his
early Genoese period, but is now definitely given to the painter who
was two years older than Van Dyck and survived him by forty years.
He was no mere imitator, and if his penetration into life was not quite
so deep and his palette not quite so magical as Van Dyck's, he was still
a great artist, the product of the time, and of their pictorial lineage.
Canvas, 53x35 in.

2O Pictures

ig. GLI INNAMORATI. Painter unknown.

Double portrait, life-size, half-lengths. He stands behind in armour,
black-avised, motionless, ' and nothing else saw all day long, save side-
long would she bend,' but would not meet his gaze. She is a fair
Venetian with rippling golden hair and black eyes, de'collete'e to the
white chemisette with neither necklace nor jewel, opulent, un bel pezzo
di donna, such that the curve from elbow to elbow of her rich dark
slate-coloured cloak edged with fur forms a quarter of a circle across
the picture. Her left hand holds a golden apple touching the head of
a stone lion of St. Mark. Will she give it to him ? Is he as black as
he is painted ? Her right hand rests on a tazza on which may be read

PVL . . R. for ' PVLCHRA.'

Canvas, 33lx32l in-
Acquired sixty or seventy years ago in Florence when every portrait
of this class was called Giorgione. The conception, the types of the
lovers and the pause before the decisive moment between them descend
from Titian, who sees his subject as a drama, whereas Giorgione sees it
in a dream. No painter of the golden age of Venetian art ever painted
on so dark a ground or drew with the brush so black an outline to the
features. It is a pasticcio, or perhaps a copy in a different tonality of
a lost Titian. It was in the possession of an old gentleman who had
lived all his life in hopes of getting a mad price for his 'Giorgione'.
Mr. Holford used humorously to tell how he got 50,000 francs and
died of excitement and satisfaction within the week.

20. LANDSCAPE. Adam Elsheimer, 1578-1610.

A clump of trees, including a stone pine ; a low horizon with a
chateau amid cultivated land and trees, over which a cumulus of clouds
is rising, such as Wilson and Crome love ; bulrushes and other water-
loving plants fringe a still pool with four ducks in windless calm.
' Not so much life as on a Summer's day
Robs not one light seed from the feathered grass.'

On copper, io| x 13! in.

Pictures 21

2L THE CHARIOT OF APHRODITE. David Teniers, 1610-1690.

The goddess, born of the foam of the sea, sleeps on red drapery in
her car drawn in triumph by doves over the waves and surrounded by
a jubilant troop of Tritons, mermaidens, and amorini, her worshippers.

Poseidon (?) is in attendance by the wheel of the car, and two wing-
less babes, the one riding a dolphin and the other swimming, may be
Rhodes and Herophilus, born of the love of Poseidon and Aphrodite.
The source of this pasticcio may be a picture by Rubens.

Signed D TENIERS F.
Panel, g| x 14! in.

22. PORTRAIT OF A VENETIAN GENTLEMAN.

Tintoretto, c. 1515-1594.

Three-quarter length life-size figure of a man, in black dress with
fair and healthy complexion, and blonde beard.

Inscribed & : xxvm. M. in.
A. M. u. XLVIII.

A glimpse of landscape on the left may assist to distinguish
Tintoretto's foliage from that of Paolo Veronese in the picture of Diana
and Actseon that hangs below (No. 23). Both are conventional.

Jacopo Robusti, il Tintoretto, was born between 1512 and 1518 and
died in 1594. Thus this portrait was painted when he was between 30
and 36, and the subject of it was 28 and three months. A copy,
without the inscription, is in the Doria Gallery at Rome attributed to
Bassano.

Canvas, 43! x 36! in.

23. DIANA AND ACTION. Paolo Veronese, 1528-1588.

A Venetian poesia. Artemis in Arcadia caught by Actseon
unawares bathing with her nymphs in a pool. The goddess, and five
out of her eight maidens, have laid aside their raiment along with their
bows, quivers, and arrows, while Actseon, who has stolen up unseen
through the trunks of trees and overhanging boughs, stays motionless
. in full view on the slope to the water, his head on his hand and his spear
by his side. The invention and design are the master's own, and perhaps
the execution too.

Canvas, 43 x gf in.

22 Pictures

24. ALTAR PIECE. Marco Palmezzano of Forll, 1456-1538.

The Madonna enthroned between St. John the Baptist with staff
and scroll ECCE AGNUS DEI and St. John the Divine with pen and
book. Signed, MARCHVS PALMIZZANVS FOROLIVIENSE FECERVNT.
The influence of Giovanni Bellini predominates.
Panel, 71 x 57 in.

25. ATALANTA AND MELEAGER. Paolo Veronese, 1528-1588.

The story of the Caledonian Boar Hunt. CEneus, king of Caledon,
having neglected to offer sacrifice to Artemis, the angry goddess sent
a monster-boar to ravage the country, and none had courage to face it till
Meleager, son of CEneus, went forth to the hunt. Jasius, father of
the Arcadian Atalanta, disappointed of a son, had exposed his daughter
on the Parthenian, or virgin, hill, where she was suckled by a she-bear,
the symbol of Artemis, and lived a maiden. She slew the centaurs
who pursued her, took part in the games, and joined in the Caledonian
hunt. Atalanta inflicted the first wound on the boar and Meleager
killed it.

The artist has seen the story at the moment when the boar's head
is presented to Atalanta by Meleager, who loved her, in a grove of
trees with a purple canopy spread between the trunks. The eleven
other figures (over and above the boy who has brought the head in a
sack) are armed with the weapons of the slaying — spears, a club with
iron spikes, and a mallet with a triangular head of stone. The
animation of the group on the left, especially the man with a club
behind Meleager, may indicate the discontent of the sons of Thestius
who deprived Atalanta of the head, and Meleager slew them.

The invention and design are probably of the master himself, if not
the entire execution also.
Canvas, 43 x g\ in.

26. PORTRAIT OF A MAN ABOUT FORTY.

Paris Bar done, 1 500- 1571.

Life-size, three-quarter length to the knees, with a black beard,
and black dress with fur collar, standing against a marble pedestal.
Canvas, 45^ x 36 in.

Pictures 23

27. THE MADONNA OF THE MEADOW. Painter unknown, c. 1530.

In the centre the figure of Mary Virgin, under life-size, kneels upon
a flowery hillock. Her right hand reaches down to a basket of roses
and pink forget-me-nots, while the Child, seated on the ground beside
her, reaches up to take the flowers she holds in her left hand. Behind
her head the double trunks of an ilex give shade. The influence
of Palma, master of Bonifazio, prevails over that of other painters, and
her type, and the folds of her drapery, suggest one or other of the eight
assistants of Bonifazio. The landscape is crowded with little hills and
valleys, castles, palaces, towns and farms, a lake and streams of
water, sundry small figures, including a kneeling saint, besides other
accessories and episodes borrowed from contemporary masters. Thus
an eagle screaming on a rail comes from the School of Bellini, the
St. Jerome, with his lion, praying and beating his breast in front of
a Bellinesque grove of trees, is derived from Titian, while the figure of
St. Joseph, with the ass and an ox hard by behind the flowery hillock,
recall Palma Vecchio and suggest a ' Riposo ' or Rest on the Flight
into Egypt. The author is probably one of the Family of the Santa
Croce, whose output covered from 1510 to 1550, more plagiarists than
eclectics, while the Bolognese were eclectics rather than plagiarists.
Canvas, 4of x 55! in.

28. PORTRAIT OF HELENA FOURMENT. /totow, 1577-1640.

The second wife of Peter Paul Rubens, whom he married on the
6th Dec. 1630, being then 52 while she was a girl of 16.

Small life-size, seated, wearing a head-dress in the shape of a small
inverted saucer of black velvet, or straw, topped by a ball made of
fringe and mounted on a stem, calculated to support the mantilla that
lies over her shoulders — the same head-dress as in the full-length portrait
of 1638-1639 in the Alphonse Rothschild collection in France, and in
the half-length at Munich, both of which are several years later in date.

Full-face, the head erect, the eyes alert, serious, untroubled, but
not without a look of introspection produced by a slight flattening of
the curve of the lid of her left eye, which is not quite so wide awake
as the right eye. The right eyebrow is finished in sanguine over crayon
while her left eyebrow is left in crayon. The double row of pearls

24 Pictures

shows several pentimenti from the first semi-circular line up to the
point when he decided that there should be no more and no less than
two rows, one of which should cross the other ; and, having indicated
so much, left it unfinished. One may note also the delicate corrections
in sanguine to the fingers of her right hand.

On paper. The paper round the drawing has been cut away about
a quarter of an inch from the drawing, which has been mounted.

Size, 23^x 2of in.

29. PORTRAIT OF A MAN ABOUT FIFTY. Rembrandt, 1606-1669.

In sanguine, crayon, bistre and wash. Signed and dated,
Rembrandt f. 1634. One of the two drawings here exhibited is from
the Aylesford collection and the other from the Warwick collection, both
good provenances. The copy is by Josi, done for Ploos van Amstel's fac-
similes (1821). A technical test is afforded by ti\z pentimenti, or improve-
ments by the artist in the course of execution. No copy has pentimenti,
and, in this case, the original is distinguishable by sundry slight ones ;
as to two of which Josi has been doubtful, and as to another he has
emphasized what Rembrandt left vague. The copy deserves to deceive,
and might deceive anybody who could not see them placed alongside of
each other and recognize in the original a delicacy, mobility, and
brimfulness of life, in short an atmosphere that defies expression in words.
The original, from the Aylesford Collection, is on vellum.
Size, 14! x i of in.

30. LA JEUNE MARIEE. Ascribed to Ferdinand Bol, c. 1613-1680.

Assuming that the attribution is correct, the date of this portrait
must be soon after 1636, when Bol became a pupil of Rembrandt — an
early work of the artist who was born not later than 1 6 1 6 nor earlier than
161 1. It bears the monogram R* v Rijn pinx* (date at present inde-
cipherable) behind her left elbow ; but about 1 887 Sir Walter Armstrong
was strongly of the opinion that it was by Bol, and it was not included in
Bode's Rembrandt published in 1901. It was exhibited as by Bol at
Burlington House in 1903 when Mr. Lionel Cust first noticed the
monogram. The portrait shows some penetration into the character of
a budding huisvrouw, barely eighteen years of age. The bloom of her com-
plexion and the rondeur of her cheeks are still untouched by the cares of

Pictures 25

married life ; not a line — not a crow's foot — is there to add expression
to the mouth and modulate her full lower lip. The eyes are modest,
serious, reticent, shy. She has lost the insouciance and gaiety of a child,
and has become possessed of a secret. She wears a sapphire ring on the
third finger of her left hand held across the figure.
Canvas, 53 x 40 in.

31. PORTRAIT OF HIMSELF. Rembrandt, 1606-1669.

Age thirty-eight, described by Bode, vol. iv, p. 259, as ' Rembrandt
seated holding a short sword in a red sheath '. The sword is now
believed to be a Jewish roll. Blue eyes and dark violet cap and doublet.
Signed Rembrandt f. 1644. Canvas, 39 x 33! in.

32. PORTRAIT OF THE WIFE OF JUSTUS LIPSIUS.

Rembrandt, 1606-1669.

Portrait of an old lady about 80 years of age. Bode, vol. iv, p. 291.
No. 192 in the catalogue of the Fesch collection, where it is stated
to be signed and dated 1644.
Canvas, 49* x 39^ in.

33. PORTRAIT OF TITUS VAN RIJN. Rembrandt, 1606-1669.

Son of the artist's first wife Saskia, born 1641, declared of age
in 1665, when he was 24, and died in 1668. He wears a gold chain
and a black biretta over long golden curly hair. Bode, vol. vi, p. 445,
says ' aged about 1 7 '. Whether this be a true guess or not as to
his age, and the exact date of the portrait, it is a splendid example of
Rembrandt's late work, 1657-1669.

Signed Rembrandt f. Canvas, 29^ x 24! in.

34. THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS.

Bonifazio de Pitati, 1487-1553.

A work of his youth, showing the influence of Titian as well as that
of his immediate master Palma, and announcing the even greater
colourist to come — perhaps the greatest of the Venetian school, as
shown by the picture of the Rich Man with his two Ladies and Lazarus,
in the Venetian Academy.
Canvas, 46! x 59 in.

D

26 Pictures

35. THE PEDLAR. Franz van Mieris (the elder), 1635-1681.

A small figure of a man resting under shelter at midday.
Panel, signed F. van Mieris. 9^ x 7^ in.

36. PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN. Gonzales Coques, 1614-1684.

Small full-length figure, standing, in rich black Spanish costume,
black hose and doublet with slashed sleeves, white silk stockings. Age
about thirty, perhaps a Spaniard in the Netherlands.
On copper, oval, 10 x 7! in.

37. A PASTORAL IDYLL. Berghem, 1620-1683.

Heretofore entitled ' Le diamant de la Curiositt'.

A Shepherdess sits working at a piece of coarse embroidery, while
behind her a herdsman plays a clarinet ; cattle, sheep, and goats in the
foreground.

Panel iaf x Q| in.

Pictures 27

IN THE WRITING ROOM

38. MADONNA. Carlo Dolci, 1618-1686.

Looking down, a deep blue veil over her head.
Canvas, 21 x 15 in.

39. LANDSCAPE. Caspar Poussin, 1613-1675.

Canvas, 37sx53i in.

40. THE NATIVITY, AND ADORATION OF THE SHEP-

HERDS. Mazzolino, c. 1480-1530.

More fused, and more natural, than usual with this master, and
showing less of his favourite cold creamy marble tones of classical ruins
and renaissance palaces contrasted with brick-coloured complexions and
strong primary colours in the draperies.
Panel, 31 x 24^ in.

41. ADORATION OF THE KINGS. Umbrian School, c. 1500.

Behind the Kings a figure stands, perhaps a portrait.
Panel transferred to canvas, g\ x 26| in.

42. ADORATION OF THE KINGS. Venetian, c. 1560-1580.

Upon this picture the question arises, What was the part, if any,
taken by Jacopo Robusti, il Tintoretto, in its execution ? The invention
and design are his.

Canvas, 18 x 5 if in.

43. VENICE. WITH VIEW OF SANTA MARIA MAGGIORE.

School of Canaletto, 1 7 20-1 780.
Canvas, i8|x 26 in.

44. LANDSCAPE. Claude Celtic Le Lorrain, 1600-1680.

From Corsham. Canvas, 37^ x 52 in.

28 Pictures

IN THE DRAWING ROOM

45. MADONNA WITH SAN GIOVANNINO. Painter uncertain.

Whoever was the painter, he was of the Milanese school after it
was dominated by Leonardo da Vinci. Attributed originally to Cesare
da Sesto, afterwards to Sodoma, and lastly to Giampetrino. An
indubitable Giampetrino hangs below it.
Panel, 31! x 22-| in.

46. HOLY FAMILY WITH SAN GIOVANNINO. Giampetrino.

Panel, 20^ x 25 -J in.

47. PORTRAIT OF THE DOGE GRITTI. School of Titian.

There must have been, and possibly there is still in existence,
a fine original by Titian, from which repetitions were made to meet the
demand of municipalities or citizens for a portrait of the head of the
Venetian State, all varying in the amount of drawing, or painting, or
mere supervision by the master himself down to studio copies by his
assistants.

Canvas, 41 x 30 in.

48. A DURBAR OF PEACOCKS. Melchior Hondecoeter.

No mere assembly of domestic fowls, but a durbar of peacocks, wild
geese, and wild ducks, a crane and a pheasant, all ready to fight, or
to talk.

Canvas, 54 x 64-3 in.

49. PORTRAIT OF A LADY. Flemish, c. 1600.

Painted before the advent of Rubens and Van Dyck, when sitters
preferred to be depicted according to the conventions of their station,
and as what they wanted to be rather than what they were.
Canvas, 42 x 35^ in.

BOOKS, WOOD-WORK, AND
CERAMICS

ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS

Next after pictures — the big game of collecting — come books, especially
painted books. Twelve MSS. illuminated with miniatures are exhibited in
Case A, equal in themselves to several whole galleries. As they were
described at length in the Burlington Club's Illustrated Catalogue of 1908,
a few notes will now suffice.

1. By far the earliest, and the rarest book outside of public libraries,

is the GOSPELS IN LATIN OF THE NINTH CENTURY,
from the School of Reims, written in letters of gold on vellum, and
containing the Eusebian Canons on twelve pages under classical
pediments supported by marble columns, besides full-page pictures of
the four Evangelists from a classical source.

2. Next comes the English MS. of the twelfth century from the Abbey

of Bury St. Edmunds, MIRACVLA SANCTI EADMVNDI REGIS
ET MART IRIS, together with the Passio Sancti Eadmundi dedicated
by Abbo, Abbot of Fleury, to St. Dunstan.

The MSS. proceed onwards through the centuries to about 1525. In
the series may be discerned the origin and development of the art of
painting up to the time when artists began to see their subjects in atmo-
sphere, and discovered that there is no line in Nature, but all is round.

Historically speaking Imagination goes before Execution. Crafts-
manship obeys the mood and the meaning of the Artist. Great collectors
begin by seeking for perfection, embodied in the full-blown flower of any
school at its zenith and before its decadence. They end, often enough, in
pursuit of the naivett and childlike grace of those early painters from
whom the great masters acknowledge their descent. Early English,
French, and Flemish illuminators saw the Bible Story with a curiosity
hardly tempered by reverence. Their freedom of invention surpasses that
of their successors in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, because they
were more careless of the limitations imposed by their material and the
difference between what was strictly paintable and not paintable. More-

30 Manuscripts

over the condition of their work appeals to collectors through having been
better protected in a library than frescoed or hung on a wall, and more
fortunate in escaping the ravages of time and the guile of the faker.

3. LA BIBLE HISTORIES, a French MS. of 1 300 to 1325, is pre-eminent

for invention. It begins with the figure of Almighty God meditating
the Creation of the World, and proceeds with the story ; the Sun and
the Moon, followed by the Earth without form and void, but surrounded
by atmosphere in motion. ' And the Spirit of God moved upon the face
of the waters', or, as a certain reverend man of science retranslated it : —
' The Spirit of God created a vibration (mirahafetK) along the surface
of the fluids ' (mayim not shamayim), — eager to reconcile the first chapter
of Genesis with the nebular theory, and the division of light from
darkness with the wave theory of light. ' Let there be light. And
there was light.' This was the book that Burne Jones used to come
frequently to see, but never got through the whole of the 1,034 pictures.
He said that if a new flood came and submerged the earth, this book
saved would serve to regenerate Art. It winds up with Lives of the
Saints.

This same book was lent to William Morris to help to solace his
last summer after his return from the fruitless voyage to Spitzbergen.
Morris galloped through it in a week, and wanted more, so the two
MSS. next below mentioned were taken to him.

4. PSALTER AND HOURS, a French MS. of 1250-1300 with twenty

pictures from the Creation to the death of Cain, forty-four of the
life of Mary Virgin from the Annunciation to the Coronation, and forty-
nine episodes in the life of David. The historiated initials, the line end-
ings and the grotesques, on burnished gold, fresh as the day they were
painted, are characteristic. The style of the pictures betrays two most
skilful hands. Morris attributed it to the neighbourhood of Arras, and
Clermont. The arms of the owner occur in the upper margin of f. 128
as well as in line-endings.

5. The next book, a PSALTER AND HOURS, French, of 1275-1300,

appealed to him especially because of its association with the Cathedral
of Amiens. It was executed for a lady, whose portrait occurs kneeling
before the Sainte Vierge and whose arms are connected with the

Manuscripts 31

de Soissons family, perhaps the wife of Jean IV, 1284-1289. Morris
noted that St. Firmian and other Amiens saints were distinguished by
letters of blue in the Calendar, and that one of the pictures represents
the finding of the bones of St. Firmian upon which the north porch of
the Cathedral was built. Among many full-page pictures, the book
contains one of an episode in the Flight into Egypt : — Horsemen in
armour accosting reapers, ' Have ye seen a Man with a Woman and a
Child upon an ass pass this way ? ' ' Yea, but that was before our corn
was ripe.' The corn had grown miraculously in the night. It is full
of jokes and humour, for instance, at the psalm Dixit Insipiens ; also
grotesques and naturalistic hunting scenes.

6. Another BOOK OF HOURS for the use of Rome, French c. 1420, with

the Parisian Calendar, contains twenty or more miniatures in the style of
the brothers de Limbourg, authors of the Trh riches heures du Dw de
Berry at Chantilly.

7. Another MS. is Italian, c. 1490. PETRARCH'S POEMS with full-

page illustrations of each of the six triumphs.

8. Another BOOK OF HOURS resembles the hand of the author of the

Grimani Missal at Venice long loosely ascribed to Memling. It is of
the finest Bruges work, 1500-1525, with two portraits of a man and his
arms now identified as those of the Suabian family of Rein. The
Calendar contains twenty-four pages, depicting the pastimes of the
months; and there are besides sixteen full-page miniatures and thirty-
two small ones, not to mention exquisite borders of flowers.

9. Another BOOK OF HOURS, of the use of Paris, is identified as contain-

ing miniatures by Jean Bourdichon of Tours, c. 1510, and closely
resembles the Hours of Anne de Bretagne at the Bibliotheque Nationale,
Paris.

10. Another little BOOK OF HOURS of the use of Rome, 4! x 3^ inches,

contains twenty-five small miniatures in the style of Jean Fouquet, two
of which are believed to be by himself.

11. DEL MODO DI REGERE E DI REGNARE, a poem on good

Government by Antonio Cornazano written in letters of silver and
dedicated to Eleanora Maria Gonzaga, Duchessa di Ferrara, with
a portrait of herself in profile for a frontispiece, believed to be not by
the hand of a miniaturist, but of a painter — possibly Ercole di Roberti.

32 Manuscripts

12. The STATUTES OF THE ORDER OF ST. MICHEL founded by
Louis XI at Amboise, 1469, and containing a large picture of the
meeting of the Knights of the Order under the Presidency of the King,
as well as a frontispiece of St. Michel. Probably the copy which was
presented to Edward VI when he was invested with the Order in 1551.
See the argument of Count Paul Durrieu in the Bulletin de la Socie'te'
fratifaise de reproductions de MSS. a peintures, Ire Ann£e (1911),
No. i, pp. 38-41. His point is that the young man on the left of the
French king is Edward VI.

BLOCK BOOKS

I. BIBLIA PAUPERUM.

A complete copy, rubricated but not coloured, of the fourth edition,
as distinguished by W. L. Schreiber, of the block book of forty leaves
cut and printed in the Netherlands.

Two other complete copies of this edition are recorded, at Paris and
Modena; that in the John Rylands Library at Manchester lacks four
leaves, while the Berlin and London Print Rooms possess two leaves
apiece.

The Biblia Pauperum (Predicatorum) is a work intended to aid poor
preachers, who could not afford the complete Bible, in preparing their
sermons. On every page a New Testament subject is placed between
two Old Testament subjects which bear to it the relation of type to
antitype. The subjects are explained by texts cut upon the block, and
busts of the prophets or other authors of the Old Testament books are
placed at head and foot of the page.

The Netherlandish editions differ from one another only slightly, in
the excellence of the cutting, and appear to be all based upon an original
set of designs of great artistic merit. This edition, though not quite
equal to the first, contains scenes of exquisite beauty. According to
W. L. Schreiber, whose opinion is followed in the British Museum
Catalogue of Incunabula, none of the block books are earlier than about
1460; older authorities placed them much earlier. The printing, in
brownish ink, has been done by placing the paper on the block and
rubbing the back of it. The watermark is an anchor.

Block Books 33

2. SPECULUM HUMANAE SALVATIONIS.

A complete copy, uncoloured, of the second Latin edition, being the
third of four editions altogether (two with Latin and two with Flemish
text) distinguished by W. L. Schreiber.

The work consists (a) of six introductory leaves, the first of which
is blank, while the others contain five pages printed with movable type,
and (<5) of fifty-eight leaves with pictures, every one of which contains a
woodcut divided into two subjects. The two pairs of woodcuts shown
on two opposite leaves form a complete whole, one of the four illustrations
being always a New Testament subject, the other three Old Testament.
The letterpress beneath the woodcuts is a mixture of block printing
and printing from movable type, twenty pages being printed in the
former, thirty-eight in the latter way.

The woodcuts, printed, like those of the Biblia Pauperum, by
rubbing the back of the paper when laid on the surface of the inked
block, are the work of an excellent Netherlandish artist, but not of very
early date. The Grenville copy of this edition in the British Museum
(one of eleven described by Schreiber) is dated ' not after 1474' in the
official catalogue. In 1483 Jan Veldener at Culenburch printed a new
edition with the same blocks cut up and increased by the addition of
twelve subjects (Proctor 9157).

The watermarks of this copy are a small bull's head, an anchor, and
two different forms of the Gothic ' p '.

3. APOCALYPSIS SANCTI JOHANNIS.

A complete copy, in forty-eight leaves, coloured by hand, of the fourth
edition as distinguished by W. L. Schreiber ; it is the first of his second
group of Apocalypse block books, those of German origin, the first
group having been produced in the Netherlands ; he attributes both to
a common origin in some MS. prototype, though the treatment of details
varies much between the first and second groups. One of the nineteen
copies of this edition recorded by Schreiber, the Spencer copy, now in
the John Rylands Library, is in a binding dated 1467. The British
Museum copy of the same edition is intercalated with a German MS.
text.

34 Block Books

There are two ' states ' of this edition. The horse in the upper half
of the seventh page ought to be black, and is rightly so coloured, but
the text on a scroll in the first three editions of the block book reads
' Equus pallidus ypocrisis est ', being founded apparently on a MS. in
which the horse was wrongly coloured white. After the first three
editions the erroneous text was removed ; in some copies of the fourth
only the word ' pallidus ' was omitted, and the text runs ' Equus —
ypocrisis est ' ; in the remainder of the edition, as in this copy, the text
was removed entirely from the scroll.

The order of the subjects had been very arbitrary in the first three
editions, but'in the fourth it corresponds pretty closely to the text of the
Bible. The first and the last pair of pages illustrate scenes from the
legend of St. John.

The watermark is a Gothic ' p ' surmounted by a flower.

ARS MEMORANDI PER FIGURAS EVANGEL1STARUM.

A coloured copy of the third of the three editions distinguished by
W. L. Schreiber. All editions are of South German origin, and date
from about 1470. Schreiber mentions, in all, twenty-two copies, eight
of which, including that in the John Rylands Library, Manchester, are
of the third edition. The Holford copy was formerly the property of
Bishop Butler.

The Ars Memorandi is a book to aid theologians in remembering
the order and contents of the chapters of the Gospels. It consists of
fifteen pages of text and as many pictures. In the centre of each picture
is the winged emblem of the Evangelist, three pictures being devoted to
St. John (placed first), five to St. Matthew, three to St. Mark, and four
to St. Luke. Round the winged figure are grouped pictorial emblems
of the events recorded : a lute recalls the Marriage at Cana, a fish the
Pool of Bethesda, two fishes and five loaves the miracle recorded in
St. John, ch. vi, and so forth.

The blank backs of the leaves in this copy have been pasted together.
The watermark of the first leaf is a bull's head with stem and cross,
and that of the last leaf a Catherine wheel.

35

BOOKS WITH WOODCUTS AND COPPER
ENGRAVINGS

1. BOCCACCIO, PHILOCOLO, printed by Sixtus Russinger (' Todisco ').

Naples, 1478.

A fine example of an exceptionally scarce book, containing about
forty woodcuts, individual in character but not closely allied to current
Italian art.

2. LORENZO DE' MEDICI, Canzone a Ballo, written by II Magnifico,

Poliziano, and others. Florence, 1568.

The frontispiece represents Lorenzo receiving a complimentary
offering, while in the background a chorus of maidens sing a canzone.
This is one of the finest of the Florentine secular woodcuts of the
Quattrocento.

3. AESOP'S LIFE AND FABLES, printed at Naples for Francesco

Tuppo in 1485. Proctor 6724.

Notable for its woodcuts, in which various writers have detected the
influence of Spain, Sicily, Strassburg, and of Saracenic art. The colo-
phon states that the book was printed for Tuppo, and there is good
ground for thinking that the actual printers were the ' German! fidel-
issimi ' whom Mr. Pollard believes to have been Dutchmen. The
influence of these striking illustrations was small.

4. DANTE, THE DIVINE COMEDY, WITH LANDING'S COM-

MENTARY, Niccolo di Lorenzo, Florence, 1481. Proctor 6120.

The book is relatively common and seldom contains more than two
copper plates. This copy has no less than nineteen, while numerous
blank spaces in the text show that after realizing the impracticability
of printing the plates in conjunction with the text, the printers were
dissatisfied with the subsequent method of pasting in the engravings,
and ultimately abandoned further efforts to complete the series of
plates. Botticelli is traditionally credited with the designs, Baccio
Baldini with their execution. In any case the pictures are true to the
Florentine style of the day.

E 2

36

THE GENERALL HISTORIE OF VIRGINIA, NEW-ENGLAND
& THE SUMMER ISLES, by Captaine JOHN SMITH Some-
times Governour in thofe Countries and Admirall of New England . . .
London. Printed by I. D. & I. H. for Michael Sparkes. 1624.

This is the Copy presented to the Cordwainers' Company by John
Smith. On the folio opposite the title-page 'graven by John Burra
and containing the portraits of ELIZABETHA REGINA, JACOBVS REX and
CAROLVS PRINCEPS is his manuscript epistle, as follows : —

To the Worsh^pf^lll the Master Wardens of the Societie
of the Cordwayners of ye Cittie of London.

Worthie Gentlemen

Not only in regard of your Courtisie & Love, Butt also of ye Continual! ufe
I have had of yot(.r Labours, & the hope you may make fame ufe of mine I salute yo"
with this Cronologicall discourse, whereof you may understand with what infinite
Difficulties & Dangers these Plantations first began, -with ther yearlie proceedings,
&f the plaine description & condition of those Countries. Hcnv many of your
Companie have bin Adventurers, whose Names are omitted or not nominated in the
Alphabett I know not, therefore I intreate you better to informe me, that I may
hereafter imprint yo" amongst the Rest, Butt of this I am Sure for want of shooes
among the Oyster Bankes wee tore our Hatts & Clothes & those being worne, wee
tied Barkes of trees about our Ffeete to keepe them from Being Cutt by the Shettes
amongst which we must goe or starve, Yett how many thousand of shooes hath bin
transported to these plantations, how many Soldiers Marriners & Saylors have bin &•
are likely to be encreased thereby, what vent your Comodities have had & still have,
& how many shipps & men of all ff acuities have bin & are yearelie imployed I leave
to you* owne Judgments, & yett by reason ill manadging, the Returnes have neither
anjwered the generall Expectation, nor my desire ; the Causes thereof yo" may
reade at large in this Booke for your better satisfaction, & I pray yo" take it not
in ill part that I present the same to yo" in this Manuscript Epistle soe Late, for both
it & I myself have bin soe overtired by attendances that this Work of mine doth
seeme to be superannuated11- before it's Birth, notwithstanding Lett me intreat yo"
to give it Lodging in your Hall freelie to be perused for ever, in memorie of your
Noblenesse towards mee, & my Love to God, my Cottntrie, your Societie, & those
plantations, Ever resting

Your's to ufe

John Smith.

* The printer's date, 1624, on the frontispiece is altered in ink to 1626.

37

DECORATIVE WOODWORK

1. CASSONE. Italian, latter half of the sixteenth century. Carved in

high relief, in walnut.

In the centre a scutcheon with a crest, on gold ground, a vine with
leaves and grapes twined up the trunk of a tree, surmounted by
a horned mask and supported by two boys. On the left of the scutcheon,
the figure of Amphitrite being carried by a sea monster with the head
of a bull, and the tail of a whale, and another sea monster with the beak
of an eagle following. On the right, Neptune riding on a sea monster
with an elephant's head and drawing a mermaiden up to him. Terminal
female figures with wings at the corners. At both ends, boys riding sea
monsters, one with the beak of a bird of prey, and the other with the
head of a tiger. Slight traces of gilding to the ornament of the lid.
Size, 66 x 2 1 in.

2. CASSONE. Italian, latter half of the sixteenth century. Carved in

high relief, in walnut.

In the centre a scutcheon bearing arms of three stars, with an
amorino above and two supporters. On the left of the scutcheon
apple gatherers ; and on the right an old man seated tending a flaming
brazier with sticks which boys are bringing. Winged sea monsters at
both ends, and winged terminal figures at the corners.
Size, 73 x 23 in.

3. CASSONE. Italian. The front panel of intarsia work is of the first half

of the sixteenth century and depicts a seaport with buildings, a mole, and
harbour. The top of the highest building and its tower is cut by
the framing of the panel. The decoration of the body of the cassone
is picked out with gold, and is of later date than the panel.
Size, 76 x 28 in.

4. A CHIPPENDALE SOFA AND THREE CHAIRS.

The fine curves of the seat-framing which continue down the cabriole
legs are in his later French manner, about 1770.

5. ARMOIRE A DEUX CORPS.

In walnut, the workmanship perhaps from the Ile-de-France.
Conventional decoration of stems and foliage on all four panels of the
doors ; terminal figures and ornaments on the pilasters.

38 Decorative Woodwork

6. ARMOIRE A DEUX CORPS. In walnut, bleached. Period of Henri II.

The two panels on the doors of the upper half depict tall and
slender figures of goddesses, nude, in low relief. On the left, Venus
holding an arrow in her right hand, and a burning heart in her left,
with Cupid at her feet. On the right, Juno with her peacock.
In the panels of the doors of the lower half of the armoire Minerva
stands nude on the left, with helmet and plume, shield, and spear;
and Diana on the right, a stag by her side, her bow in the left
hand, takes an arrow from its quiver. Decoration in both high and
low relief of \hefinefteur of the Renaissance. Lyons work.

Height 70 in. ; Width of upper body 32^- in. ; Base 40^ in.

Though bearing no monogram of a royal H interlaced with two
crescents, this meuble summons memories and exhales the atmosphere
of a choir of goddesses star-scattered in the paintings and bas-reliefs of
the French Renaissance. Of such are the two 'Dianes de Jean Goujon ',
one leaning against a master-stag — her enchanted Prince ; the other
watching amorously the approach of the noble beast who murmurs :
Sweet lady, ' make me immortal with a kiss'. Of such are the Divinite's
Chasseresses of Primaticcio and his school. Of such is Diane de Poitiers
who inspired them all. Historians preach in vain that this young
goddess was an old woman, rapacious, and nearly fifty even at the dawn
of her reign. No one believes it ; no one wants to believe it. She is
one of the world's enchantresses. Posterity sees her through the
spell-bound eyes of Henri II who loved her, and her alone, all his life.
Once only this unlettered King broke into poetry to acknowledge her
power and articulate his passion. The following is the beginning and
end of his double sonnet :

Plus ferme foy ne fut onques juree
A nouveau prince, 6 ma seule princesse,
Que mon amour, qui vous sera sans cesse
Centre le temps et la mort asseuree.

Helas, mon Dyeu, combyen j'ai regrete
Le temps que j'ai perdu en ma jeunesse!
Combien de foys je me suys souete
Avoyr Dyane pour ma seule maytresse,
Mais je creynoys qu'elle, quy est deesse,

Decorative Woodwork 39

Ne se voulut abesser jusque la
De fayre cas de moi qui sans cela
N'avoys playsir, joie, ni contentement,
Jusques a 1'heure que se delybera,
Que j'obeisse & son commandemant.*

CERAMICS

A PAIR OF MANDARIN JARS, Chinese, eighteenth century.

Decoration of peonies, phoenixes, rouge de fer, and gold band round
the shoulder, &c.

Height from base to rim of jar . . . . . . 49 in.

„ „ „ to top of gilt kylin that stands on the cover . 58 in.
Diameter of top of jar . . . . . . . . 1 1 in.

ITALIAN MAIOLICA

The Committee desire to express the thanks of the Club to Mr. Bernard
Rackham for selecting and arranging these pieces, and for contributing the
following notes.

The maiolica in the exhibition, acquired for the most part at the sale of
the Bernal collection (1855), consists in the main of specimens of the istoriato
class which was in favour at the time when the collection was formed. The
neglect of this type during the subsequent period of appreciation of the
earlier and stronger school of maiolica painting may be said to be giving
place to a more balanced judgement of the undeniable chromatic excellences
to be found in the products of the Urbino kilns. The most interesting piece
in the exhibition is perhaps the lustred dish with portraits, and the Orsini
escutcheon which still challenges identification ; another piece to be noted
is a dish belonging to the later period of the great master of maiolica paint-
ing, Nicola Pellipario. Attention may also be drawn to a fine piece of the
decorative ware of Faenza, and several Deruta lustred dishes.

On top of Case.

1. DISH of scannellato form. Faenza, about 1540.

2. DISH, lustred, with arms of the Orsini. Deruta, early i6th century.

3. DISH of scannellato form. Faenza, second half of 1 6th century. A late

example of the type.

* See ' Hommes el Dieux ', Paul de St. Vic/or s. v. Diane de Poitiers.

40 Italian Maiolica

Top SMf.

1. DISH. A boar-hunt scene after an engraving by Antonio Tempesta.

Border of grotesques. Urbino, about 1600. This may perhaps be
ascribed to Alfonso Patanazzi.

2. BREAD-PLATTER from an accouchement scene. On one side, Joseph

and Potiphar's wife ; on the other, Cupid. Urbino, workshop of Orazio
Fontana. About 1560-1570.

3. DISH. The Roman populace entertained with a feast; border of

grotesques. Inscribed ' AL POPOLO ROMANO LARGO CONVITO*. Urbino,
probably by Orazio Fontana. About 1560-1570.

<k

4 DISH. Christ appearing to the Magdalene in the guise of a gardener ;
also a shield (or a dolphin lauriant azure) with the initials I A.
Urbino (?) ; second half of i6th century.

5. DISH. The games in the Circus Maximus. Border of grotesques.
Urbino, workshop of Orazio Fontana, about 1560-1570.

Second Skelf.

1. DISH, with portrait inscribed MARGARITA, lustred. Deruta, about 1530.

2. DISH. The Trojan Horse. Inscribed

Come fit menato
il cavallo di legno
in troia.

Urbino, probably by Orazio Fontana, about 1560.

3. PLATE. Faenza, early i6th century.

4. DISH, with portraits of a betrothed couple and the arms of Orsini three

times repeated. The names ' LORE ' and ' CESERA ' and the legend
' FIDES ONIA ' (omnia) are appended to the portraits. Deruta, about 1510.
The identity of the personages is uncertain. The only Lorenzo
Orsini named by Litta married Clarice Orsini ; their eldest son was
already grown up in 1473. The possibility to which the repetition of
the Orsini coat and the absence of another lends colour — that these are
the persons commemoratively depicted — must be regarded as remote.

Italian Maiolica . 41

5. PLATE. A putto, or amorino, carrying a ball. Castel Durante, about

1525-

It is to be noted that the ball takes the form of the ' piruota ', fire-
ball or grenade, which was the mark of the Casa Pirota factory at
Faenza. Other instances of its introduction in the decoration of
maiolica from other sources are provided by the celebrated dish of
1508, with the signature of Zona maria of Castel Durante, till recently
in the possession of the Duke of Newcastle, and on a plate in the
Wallace collection with the signature of Maestro Giorgio of Gubbio and
date 1528.

6. PLATE. The story of Cain and Abel (the Sacrifice and the Murder of

Abel). Urbino, by Francesco Xanto, about 1540. Unsigned.

7. DISH, with an unidentified mythological subject. Urbino, by Nicola

da Urbino (Pellipario), about 1530. Unsigned.

This dish is similar in style to those with the signature of Nicola
in the Bargello, Florence (1528), and the British Museum (undated). It
belongs to the period of the painter's decline.

Bottom Shelf.

1. DISH, with portrait and inscription CHI BE GVIDA • SVA • BACA • ESEPRE • i

PORTO. Deruta, about 1520.

2. DISH. Moses striking the rock. Urbino, probably by Orazio Fontana.

About 1550.

3. PLATE from a service made for Guidobaldo II, duke of Urbino, with

scenes from the Punic Wars ; Hannibal crossing the Ebro, inscribed

Annibale passato il fiume Ibero

Piu terre acquista a 1'Africano jmpero.
Urbino, Fontana factory, about 1550.

4. DISH. Apollo and Marsyas. Inscribed De Apollo et Marsia. Urbino,

workshop of Orazio Fontana, about 1550.

5. DISH. Portrait of the Corsair Barbarossa. Inscribed NO • CIE • PIV • FEDE •

NECHARITA • NE(A)MORE. Deruta, about 1530.

The bearded head has been somewhat naively fitted on to a bust of
stereotype design for a portrait of a lady.

Upstairs.

DISH. St. Francis receiving the stigmata. Deruta, about 1530.
DISH. St. Jerome. Deruta, about 1530.

42

CHELSEA

The Commit lee are indebted to Mr. R. L. Hobsonfor the following note.

A PAIR OF VASES. Ovoid bodies, wide necks, and flaring mouths;
each with two scroll-shaped lugs ; small stems and spreading feet ;
mottled dark-blue ground ; two large panels with gilt rococo frames.
Subjects of the panels :

(1) Music lesson, a pastoral scene after Boucher ; in the background
an ancient fountain with a formal inscription partly legible.

(2) Two lovers in a cornfield surprised by a reaper, after Boucher.
On the reverse of each vase, exotic birds in landscape. The panels

are evidently by the same hand as those on the Gamier vases painted
in 1752 and given to the British Museum in 1753, the painter of which
was John Donaldson.
Mark, a gold^anchor.

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